


Please give up

by orphan_account



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Agender Character, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Gen, Ori is all the As, Pre-Quest, Unrequited Love, he might also be autistic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 08:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2461010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>people keep trying to court Ori<br/>ze wish they'd stop</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please give up

**Author's Note:**

> hello and watch as I try to give you as a stand-alone what was originally meant as the first chapter of, guess what, a romance fic  
> but it works nicely like that, and I can't remember the plot anyway, and the world could do with more asexual and aromantic characters

“Ever since I first met you, I knew you were the one Mahal has made for me. Will you accept my courtship, Ori, son of Ari?”

The young scribe stared at the ground between hir feet, playing nervously with the hem of hir scarf. Ze so wished people wouldn’t do that. Especially when they were absolute strangers, like this one. Or maybe he wasn’t a stranger. Maybe Ori had talked to him someday, and forgotten about it. Dori always told hir that it was important to talk to people and be polite and sociable, so ze did. Small talk had been a little difficult to master, but ze had the formula for it now, and it was almost fun now to see how it _always_ went the same way...

The trouble was, when ze talked about the price of meat and the latest news from the surface, people sometimes thought it meant more than that. There were always people who thought that ze was flirting, no matter how hard ze tried to not do anything that might be understood as such. Hir smile was copied on Dori’s, polite but distant (or so Ori had heard it described). Ze kept hir arms crossed on hir chest as much as possible (a sign of defensiveness, Nori had taught hir). Ze tried to avoid laughing at people jokes (another thing Nori had taught hir… and their jokes often weren’t that _funny_ anyway). Ze did anything ze could, and yet Ori still found hirself in that situation where people were asking hir out even though they didn’t know hir.

Luckily, ze’d learned how to deal with that.

“Do you like the saga of Grettir?” ze asked.

The dwarf before him threw hir a confused look. This, clearly, wasn’t what he’d expected to hear.

It never was.

“I don’t know? I don’t think I know it” he admitted, and at least he was honest, Ori had to grant him that. Ze’d heard a lot of dwarves lie without a second thought.

“What about the saga of Njals? Do you like that one?”

“I don’t… is that even a real thing?”

Ori sighed, and hir fingers clenched on hir scarf.

“Do you know the tale of Feanor?”

“That doesn’t even sound like a dwarvish name,” the dwarf noted with a slight frown.

“It’s elfish.”

“Why would I know about elven stories?” the dwarf asked, sounding almost offended by the question. He probably was.

Ori sighed again, then forced hirself to take a deep breath. Ze hated that part of it. People always made it difficult and embarrassing, and ze just hated it.

“I am not interested in a courtship with anyone,” ze explained, forcing hirself to keep hir voice audible and slow. “I’m craft-wed, and…”

“Oh, but that’s such a _waste_ of a pretty face!” the other protested, and Ori winced. “Maybe you’ve just never found the right person? Have you even tried to…”

Ori crossed hir arms against his chest and looked down, fighting the sickness in hir stomach.

“I’m _quite_ sure,” ze claimed as firmly as possible. “I have _no_ interest in… such things. And since you’ve just said that you had no interest in my craft…”

“I didn’t…!”

“You just admitted to not knowing any of the stories I mentioned, that’s making things clear enough. I am _very_ sorry if I ever did anything to make you think I had an interest in you,” Ori said as an afterthought, because ze didn’t want to be unkind. “It was entirely involuntary and I did not mean to lead you on.”

Ze risked a glance toward the dwarf, who seemed very unhappy… but he didn’t look like he was about to yell or insist. Ori was grateful for that. Ze hated when they got violent, or tried to kiss hir by force, to prove hir that he wasn’t _really_ uninterested in sex… as if forcing hir might accomplish anything. Ori had never really understood the logic behind it. Ze rather suspected that such dwarves didn’t really want to convince hir of anything, and were just trying to take what they wanted regardless of what _ze_ wanted… but that made even less sense. What sort of a dwarf would do something like that?

“And what if I tried to learn about stories,” the dwarf before him suggested. “Would you…”

“No,” Ori cut, tensing, preparing to be forced to explain… but the dwarf really was one of the good ones, and that _no_ was enough. He apologized for his unwanted offer (a nice touch, Ori decided, because sometimes they made it sound like _ze_ was at fault for this) and left Ori alone.

The young dwarf took a minute to calm down, because this was always so stressful… and then went back inside the house. As soon as the door closed behind hir, Dori came out of the kitchen, a frown on his face.

“Well? What did he want?”

“Just to talk,” Ori lied, nervously playing with hir scarf once more.

“No one comes here just to _talk_ to you,” Dori pointed out. Which was true. Only, Dori got so angry sometimes when people tried to court his youngest sibling. Sometimes, he had reasons to. “What did he really want? Was he nice about it? How did he take it when you said no?”

Ori winced. “He didn’t insist, and he wasn’t awful at all about it, and he was polite, so if you ever meet him in the street, you _can’t_ be mean to him.”

“I never…”

“You do.”

“Only to people who deserve it. You _would_ tell me if there had been any problems, wouldn’t you?”

Ori nodded slowly, looking away. Ze always told _someone_ if the people trying to court him were too pushy. Ze just didn’t always tell _Dori_ , because sometimes ze’d been confronted to some really bad dwarves. It was better to let Nori take care of these. Nori was always more than happy to be helping his sibling, and Ori was sure to _never_ be bothered again by anyone who’d been confronted to Nori.

Ze tried not to think about why _that_ was.

“Well, I’m glad he was polite,” Dori conceded. “Well. I’m. I’m making biscuits, do you want to help?”

Ori smiled at hir brother, because Dori was predictable sometimes… and to be fair, on any other day, ze would have wanted nothing more than to forget about this awkward conversation by baking.

“Can’t, not today,” ze sighed. “Master Gloin asked me to come by his house, said there might be a job for me… but he’s not allowed to say more than that at present. It would pay very well though.”

It would also involve travelling, or so the merchant had hinted, but that was not something Dori needed to know at present. That sort of detail would have to be kept for later. Once Ori had signed a contract, maybe ze might start thinking of telling hir brother… if ze even got the job, which was less than certain. Ze was a good scribe, but that wasn’t always enough.

“Will Gimli be there?”

“Maybe. She’s often with her cousins lately.”

“If she’s around, you should invite her for dinner,” Dori advised. “Her father has fed you so often, it’s more than time we did the same… and she’s a good girl.”

Ori grinned. Good wasn’t the first thing that came to hir mind when thinking about Gimli… and Dori’s opinion of her might have changed if he knew that she was teaching Ori how to fight. Dori had decided long ago that he was all the protection his sibling needed, and that fights were too messy a business for Ori to get anywhere near one.

Something Ori had never had a problem with, until ze’d started attracting the attention of people who couldn’t understand the meaning of no. Gimli had saved hir from trouble once, and then decided that she’d teach hir everything she knew… and it had been nothing but fun, as far as Ori was concerned.

“I’ll tell her,” Ori promised. “She’ll sure be happy. She thinks you’re very smart, you know. And she loved your biscuits every time I’ve shared them with her. Especially the ones with nuts.”

“I’ll make sure to have some, then. Now hurry, you don’t want to be late.”

Ori nodded, and ran to hir room to grab hir notebook and hir favourite nib, in case ze was asked to demonstrate anything.

Even with the bad surprise of that dreadful conversation, ze had a good feeling about that day, and about hir meeting with Gloin.

  
  


 


End file.
